Land requirements for public transport facilities in urban areas—A statistical approach

The major aim of this work is to develop a primary tool for the quantitative determination of land areas needed to fulfil the diverse functions of public transport. The need for such a tool is obvious; worldwide there is a lack of criteria for determining the types of areas needed, their size, and relative location in the urban system. Moreover, there is a lack of awareness regarding land allocation during the various planning stages, both by urban planners and decision makers. This work attempts to identify various types of facilities to be allocated within the urban framework, and to determine quantitative guidelines for the land needed for them. A statistical analysis is performed in order (i) to identify major transit facilities and operational data functions for which land must be allocated, and (ii) to forecast areas for types of facilities not dealt with by the statistical analysis. The statistical forecast is based on fitting a regression model to the input data. The outcome of this work is presented in terms of three statistical relationships and an indirect relationship: between socio-economic and demographic variables (independent) to the dependent variables, either operating variables or land area variables, and between operating variables (independent) and land area variables (dependent), where for the latter there is also an indirect relationship while using standards.     

Lane change algorithm for autonomous vehicles via virtual curvature method

This paper addresses the lane changing problem of autonomous vehicles when there is no road infrastructure support. The autonomous vehicle should drive from the current lane to the adjacent lane in the absence of a reference path to guide the vehicle to the new lane. We suggest an algorithm that incorporates a virtual road curvature with bicycle model for lane change guidance. As the name suggests, the virtual road curvature does not physically exist. It is a user assigned radius of a curved path which connects the current lane to the adjacent lane. Since the lateral sensor readings during lane changing maneuver are erroneous, the steering angle along with the virtual curvature is fed into a bicycle model to estimate the lateral position during the transition to the next lane. Details of the algorithm and the virtual road curvature determination are presented in the paper. In contrast to other lane changing methods, controller switching is not required and the same controller is for both lane keeping and lane changing. The algorithm is verified experimentally and the results are comparable with lane changing with physical transition lane.     

Use of SeaWiFS data for light availability and parameter estimation of a phytoplankton production model of the Bay of Biscay

Processing SeaWiFS (Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor) data provides useful information for the observation and modelling of the phytoplankton production of the Bay of Biscay. Empirical algorithms allow the retrieval of chlorophyll a and non-living Suspended Particulate Matter (SPM) concentrations. These data are used to constrain a coupled 3D physical–biogeochemical model of the Bay of Biscay continental shelf. Two issues are investigated, depending on the variable used, to constrain the winter to spring phytoplankton production for the year 2001. First, SPM data is used as forcing data to correct the corresponding state variable of our model. This allows the realistic simulation of the light limited bloom at the end of February 2001, as observed with SeaWiFS chlorophyll a images and from the NUTRIGAS field cruise. Second, chlorophyll a data is used for parameter estimation of the biogeochemical model. The ability of assimilating these data is tested to improve the simulation of strong blooms observed in late May 2001 in the Loire and Gironde plumes. A global optimization method (Evolutive Strategies) is adapted to the complete 3-D coupled model, in order to find the best set of parameters. The hydrological conditions during the bloom can be validated with data from the PEL01 field cruise. After selection of the most sensitive parameters, the method is tested with twin experiments. Then, the use of real SeaWiFS data reduces the model/data misfit by a factor of two, improving the simulation of bloom intensities and extensions. The sets of parameters retrieved in each plume are discussed.     

让汽车与人们更安全——德尔福主动夜视系统

尽管这些年来汽车照明技术取得不小的进步,但夜间行车的风险仍比白天大得多.据美国国家公路交通安全管理局(NHTSA)的统计,虽然夜间行车在整个公路交通中只占1/4,发生的死亡事故却占了一半.     

Tradeoffs in incremental changes towards pedestrian-friendly environments: Physical activity and pollution exposure

A microsimulation of individuals’ activities is used in the context of a risk analysis framework to assess the impacts of hypothesized changes to the built environment on personal energy expenditure and on inhalation of air pollutants. Uncertainty is assessed using Monte Carlo simulations and sensitivity analyzes. We find both simulated individuals that augment and others that reduce their energy expenditure and inhalation dose of pollutants, with median increases displaying larger magnitudes than the decreases. Up to 75% of the population has significant increases in energy expenditure and pollutant inhalation. We also find, however, high uncertainty associated with the estimates. Results differ considerably depending on the travel mode choice model used in the simulation.     

Investigation of the impact of locomotive creep control on wear under changing contact conditions

This paper presents the locomotive traction controller performance with respect to the track wear under different operation conditions. In particular, an investigation into the dynamic response of a locomotive under changing wheel–rail friction conditions is performed with an aim to determine the effect of controller setting on track wear. Simulation using a full-scale longitudinal–vertical locomotive dynamic model shows that the appropriately designed creep threshold, controller, settings can effectively maintain a high tractive effort while avoiding excessive rail damage due to wear, especially during acceleration under low speed.     

An improved incremental assignment model for parking variable message sign location problem

Operators and planners of parking guidance and information system (PGIS) often encounter the difficulty when and how to provide parking information to drivers in peak hours. The aim of this study was to assign the parking demands onto the urban network, find the positions suitable to locate the parking variable message sign (parking VMS), and try to solve the problem when to provide parking information to drivers. Parking VMS, as the most common forms of the information display terminal of PGIS, becomes critical in designing PGIS. This paper started from analyzing the relationship between the location and the performances of parking VMS. If a parking VMS is placed right along the link approaching to the divarication intersection of the subsequent “shortest path” and the previous one, the travel time declines abruptly, and the guiding compliance ratio becomes superior. Then, the network‐based parking choice model for the parking VMS was proposed. Network modification and incremental assignment were used to find the divarication intersections caused by the changes of space availability. In addition, MATLAB software package (MathWorks, Inc., Natick, MA, USA) was adopted to calculate the entire process mentioned. The proposed model and the algorithm were applied to a numerical example, where the location of parking VMS was obtained. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Capitalization of BRT network expansions effects into prices of non-expansion areas

A before and after hedonic model is used to determine the property value impacts on properties already served by the transit system caused by extensions to Bogotá’s bus rapid transit system. Asking prices of residential properties belonging to an intervention area (N = 1407 before, 1570 after) or a control area (N = 267 before, 732 after) and offered for sale between 2001 and 2006 are used to determine capitalization of the enhanced regional access provided by the extension. Properties offered during the year the extension was inaugurated and in subsequent years have asking prices that are between 13% and 14% higher than prices for properties in the control area, after adjusting for structural, neighborhood and regional accessibility characteristics of each property. Furthermore, the appreciation is similar for properties within 500 m and properties between 500 m and 1 km of the BRT.